1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to techniques for supplying a liquid to a liquid consuming apparatus.
2. Related Art
Liquid consuming apparatuses (for example, ink jet printers) that eject a liquid from an ejecting head are known. The liquid ejected from the ejecting head is held in a liquid holding container, and the liquid held in the liquid holding container is supplied to the ejecting head via a connection tube or the like.
The principle known as “Mariotte's bottle” is sometimes used for the purpose of supplying only the amount of liquid to be ejected from the liquid holding container to the ejecting head. With a liquid holding container using this principle, a liquid supply opening and an air intake opening are provided in a base area of the liquid holding container, the ejecting head is connected to the liquid supply opening via the connection tube, and the air intake opening communicates with the exterior via an air flow channel. The interior of the liquid holding container is at a negative pressure, and the structure is such that liquid attempting to flow out from the liquid supply opening (or the air intake opening) is held within the liquid holding container by the negative pressure.
In addition, a liquid holding container provided with an injection opening through which a liquid can be injected from the exterior is known (for example, JP-A-2003-127427). With this liquid holding container, when only a small amount of liquid remains in the interior, a cap that covers the injection opening is opened and the container is filled with liquid from the injection opening, making it possible to continually supply liquid to a liquid consuming apparatus.
However, a liquid holding container that utilizes the principle of Mariotte's bottle has a problem in that the liquid cannot be refilled by providing an injection opening. In other words, the negative pressure within the liquid holding container will be released if the injection opening is opened in order to refill the liquid, and there has thus been a problem in that the liquid cannot be held within the liquid holding container by utilizing the principle of Mariotte's bottle.